Guy Pratt and Lee Harris sat down with Classic Rock to share details about their ‘Saucerful Of Secrets Set The Controls Tour’ setlist. During the conversation, Pratt shared the one song David Gilmour will never play again. When the topic switched to ‘Echoes,’ Pratt said:
“It was a big deal playing ‘Echoes.’ I resisted it for all sorts of reasons and said I was never going to play it again after Rick died. Part of that was because David had said he was never going to play it again, so I was like, ‘Well, who the hell am I going to play it with?’ I never saw this band coming, did I? Ultimately, this is honoring Rick and it’s a rose to sing, and I love singing this with Gary. Dom deserves a shout-out here, he’s put a sound effect in, a thunder clap, that you think, ‘Why wasn’t that there before?’”
Gilmour Would Never Play ‘Echoes’ Without Rick Wright
On August 26, 2006, Gilmour and Richard Wright played ‘Echoes’ for the last time. It was at Gdańsk Shipyard in Poland, finishing Gilmour’s On an Island Tour. During the tour, Nick Mason joined Gilmour for some London gigs, and David Bowie also made appearances.
The Gdańsk show was notable as it was the final performance of the song. It was also the last time Gilmour and Wright played together before Wright passed away in 2008. Since that 2006 show, Gilmour hasn’t played ‘Echoes’ again.
Before his 2016 show at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii, he talked about the song and revealed whether or not he would play it again:
“Yes, it would be lovely to play ‘Echoes’ here. But I wouldn’t do that without Rick. There’s something that’s specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that, that you can’t get someone to learn it and do it just like that. That’s not what music’s about.”
Hear ‘Echoes’ down below.